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In this classroom activity, the instructor divides students into small groups and gives each group some pages with dialogue between a female and male. There are two versions of this dialogue, although the instructor does not disclose this information at first. One version contains the dialogue as it was originally...

In this classroom activity, the instructor divides students into small groups and gives each group some pages with dialogue between a female and male. There are two versions of this dialogue, although the instructor does not disclose this information at first. One version contains the dialogue as it was originally published, and the other reverses the gender of the speakers. After handing out dialogue excerpts to each group, I give students 10 mi...In this classroom activity, the instructor divides students into small groups and gives each group some pages with dialogue between a female and male. There are two versions of this dialogue, although the instructor does not disclose this information at first. One version contains the dialogue as it was originally published, and the other reverses the gender of the speakers. After handing out dialogue excerpts to each group, I give students 10 minutes or so to read the dialogue and discuss their impressions of the two characters. Most groups choose to read the dialogue out loud, assigning the speaking roles to different group members. Once the groups have finished this part of the activity, I ask all students to write down their impressions of the dialogue characters (this written record prevents students from changing their impressions in response to their peers during later class discussions) Next, I ask each group to tell me something about the characters. This discussion typically reveals very different impressions depending on which of the two dialogues students read. For instance, a group with the original version might view the man in the dialogue "calm and rational" and the woman as "emotional yet strong," but a group with the reversed dialogue might view the man as "whiney, clingy, and manipulative" and the woman as "cold and uninterested in him." Once a few students have offered their impressions, I reveal that there are two versions of the dialogue. At this point, I invite students to take another 10 minutes with their group and discuss whether their impressions of the characters would be different if the genders were reversed from what the group read earlier. In the last phase of the activity, I hold a class discussion in which students talk about any gender biases they encountered or displayed, where these biases come from, whether the biases are harmful, and how best to reduce biases if indeed they are harmful.
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